American and Russian teams will start another round of talks as
early as today on a new nuclear-arms-reduction pact
to replace the expiring Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Problem is
Russia isn't meeting its obligations on some old
arms-control agreements.

It's no small matter -- but the question is: Will the Obama
administration make an issue of it?

Some analysts fear that, with President Obama keen for a
nuke-free world, US negotiators might be willing to look the other
way to reach an accord with Russia, despite a record of
non-compliance with existing arms-control agreements.

Earlier this year, a congressional panel, the Strategic Posture
Commission, reported that Russia is "no longer in compliance with
its PNI commitments" -- leaving Moscow with what some say could be
a 10:1 advantage in "battlefield" nukes.

Nuke testing: America, Russia and others
have undertaken an informal moratorium on nuclear-weapons tests
based on the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which President
Bill Clinton signed but the Senate never ratified.

But an SPC member warned recently that Russian "nuclear labs
have been growing, their budgets have been increasing and they
continue an active underground test program at Novaya Zemlya, which
includes the release of low levels of nuclear energy."

This conflicts with America's no-bang,
"zero-yield" standard and suggests Moscow is doing some low-yield
testing that could lead to new weapons' development. (Russian
doctrine puts a premium on fighting battlefield nuclear war.)

Strategic arms: Even as it negotiates a
new START treaty, the Kremlin is fudging on the existing one. A
2005 State Department report points to multiple Russian violations,
including restrictions on inspections of its intercontinental
ballistic missiles and warheads.

There's more: One expert recently noted Russia is testing its
SS-27 ICBM with multiple warheads. But START identifies the SS-27
as a single-warhead missile -- and permits
testing/deployment only in that configuration.

Proliferation: Others say Russia has
been cutting corners on accepted non-proliferation standards --
notably, by helping Iran and North Korea develop ballistic missiles
and nuclear know-how. This is no small matter, considering the
threat to America.

Indeed, the director of national intelligence sent a letter to
the State Department in March 2007, stating: "We assess that
individual Russian entities continue to provide assistance to
Iran's ballistic-missile programs" -- which implies either Kremlin
involvement in, knowledge of, or failure to intervene into these
activities.

Some analysts also think North Korea got Russian help in the
form of key components for its April long-range-missile test.
Others see Moscow's aid to the Iranian nuclear program going beyond
the reactor it's building at Bushehr.

Adding to fears Obama's negotiators won't bring up these issues
in the Vienna talks is the tentative deal he struck with Russian
president Dmitry Medvedev on dual-use strategic-delivery systems
this summer, drastically cutting US subs and bombers that have
conventional military roles, too. They may also throw Iran-focused,
Europe-based US missile defense, which the Russkies hate, under the
bus in order close a deal.

Successful arms control depends on actually controlling weapons
in ways that serve US national-security interests, not by merely
inking new pacts for the sake of concluding a deal that
sounds good.

Before we rush into signing onto any more arms-control treaties,
we need to get to the bottom of Russia's non-compliance with
existing arms-control and non-proliferation promises.

If we don't, the Russians will have little if any incentive to
correctly implement any new treaty -- and every reason to find
clever ways to cheat, as it looks like they're doing now, further
jeopardizing our national security.

Peter Brookes is senior fellow for National
Security Affairs in the Davis Institute at The Heritage
Foundation.